Want proof that the housing bubble was highly specific?A single chart illustrates how much real estate is "underwater" by state -- and five states (Nevada, Arizona, Florida, Michigan, and California) are 30% or more in the red. Several others are about 20% underwater. But about a dozen (including Iowa) are at or below 10%. That's a yawning gap -- but the problem is that those markets that got into deep trouble are also very big ones, and it's disproportionately affecting the rest of the country.

More protests spreading in northern Africa and the Middle EastWhat's especially interesting is that the process appears to be a cascade: The whole process started in Tunisia, and subsequently caught on in Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Algeria, Bahrain, Iran, and Yemen. That's a whole lot of instability in a very wide stretch of geography. And it's difficult for the United States to just give a blanket endorsement to all of the protests, because sometimes the devil you know is better than the devil you don't -- Iran's popular revolution of 1979 hasn't produced anything good for America. And there's also a clear need for the right institutions to be in place for any country to start building a functioning democratic government, and those institutions aren't developed overnight (after all, it took from 1776 to 1789 for the United States to even settle on the Constitution).

Quite the guest listPresident Obama just had a dinner with the heads of Twitter, Netflix, Apple, Google, Facebook, Cisco, and other companies that are hot in the technology sector. It was a closed-door session, though the quite obvious rivalries present in the room suggest that it probably wasn't exactly the kind of Earth-shaking meeting of the minds that the guest roster might have suggested.

Mark Cuban's advice on becoming a self-made entrepreneurHis advice, distilled: Work hard and do a lot of research. He also makes a strong case for cutting the complex "administrivia" that stands in the way of many Americans who might otherwise be innovating on their own. Even giant companies have to start somewhere, but if the hurdles to just get started become too great, then people aren't going to drive economic innovation and growth. They'll just shrug their shoulders and disappointedly go back to their desks and work for others. But the deadweight of needless complexity will continue to put a drag on companies of all sizes anyway.

What Warren Buffett will probably say in the Berkshire Hathaway annual reportWarren Buffett's annual letter to shareholders, contained within the Berkshire Hathaway annual report, is widely anticipated both within the shareholder community and throughout the investing public at large. Buffett is unusual in that he offers a lengthy narrative of the business environment and the performance of Berkshire's wide-ranging subsidiaries as part of the letter. It should be more common practice than it is -- unfortunately, though, Buffett is exceptional in so doing. His report on 2010, which by all estimates was a very strong year for the company, probably won't break a lot of new ground that his prior reports haven't covered in the past. But it's quite likely that he will harp on the theme of intrinsic value this year. There's been a lot of speculation about what the company will do with what is expected to be a $50 billion pile of cash (or more) by the end of 2011. A popular view encouraged by an article in Barron's is that Berkshire might start paying a shareholder dividend, which would be a significant break with the past. That's not especially likely, because that would signal that Buffett believes that individual shareholders would be able to earn a greater return from each dollar in dividends than he would be able to find on their behalf by investing it. And while he's notorious for lamenting that it's getting harder and harder to find deals that whet his appetite, he's also lamented that problem since the late 1960s, and yet has solved it every time. The way he solves it, though, is by pursuing intrinsic value: Believing that it's better to find something that's really worth less than the going market price and to buy it and hold on to it. In this annual report, he'll probably lament that there isn't a lot to be found right now that's valued below its intrinsic value -- at least not in the US market. And there isn't -- not after the run-up in the overall market over the last two years. But some businesses will always be available from time to time that will meet Buffett's standards for purchase, and this year will probably just mark a brief cooling-off period for the company (after the payoff of some very good investments elsewhere and a bit of profit-taking from its stock holdings), even if the overall stock market remains buoyant. But if a good portion of Buffett's letter doesn't focus on how investors ought to mentally separate stock share prices from the intrinsic value of the company behind those prices, one ought to be very surprised. He likely anticipates opportunities in the next couple of years that would reward having plenty of cash available in order to make new purchases, since the macroeconomic recovery has been anything but consistent and fully predictable. There will be hiccups over the coming few years, and those hiccups will be very good opportunities to buy. [Disclosure: The author owns Berkshire Hathaway stock.]

It would be delightful to see electric cars being manufactured in Iowa......but it's not a pleasant thing to hear that government agencies -- right down to the city level -- are giving away money to make it happen. If a business isn't going to succeed without subsidies, then those subsidies ought to come with a direct financial reward for the taxpayers whose money is risked upon them. And if people then recognize that as nothing more than partial state ownership of the firm, which has an unpleasantly socialist ring to it, then they should see why government shouldn't be in the direct-subsidies business at all.

China's current drought is its worst in 60 yearsOnce again, it's clear that we need to find more and better ways to store larger crop surpluses in the good years so that there's plenty to rely upon in the bad years. Just imagine how bad things would be if it weren't a drought causing crop shortages in China, but another volcanic eruption like Tambora

A ship to carry 18,000,000 flat-screen televisionsShipping line Maersk has signed a deal to buy at least ten ships roughly the size of four end-to-end football fields, that will travel at about 20 mph but use 20% less fuel than their predecessors. Pretty remarkable engineering.

Flipper goes fishing(Video) Some dolphins in Australia have learned to go fishing in water that's much too shallow for them to swim in normally. They weren't created this way -- it's a learned behavior. The reality of evolutionary progress is far more interesting than any creation myth.